The Manchin team is purposefully engineering a primary for the reasons that have been alluded to above, and "the Left" - in its classic incompetent and unorganized form - is playing right into their hands. It's like waving a red flag at a bull; they can't help themselves. His staff leaked that audio on purpose from a few weeks back where Manchin encouraged the left to primary him and I'm sure a whole lot more is going on right now too.
So here's how it plays out: some no-name (likely a non-WV native) will declare and make general overtures to progressives, maybe hire a couple of no-name staffers once donations begin flowing. The Green Web will whip itself into a frenzy and begin raising money - with practically none of it coming from WV - and before you know it, this person will have a million or two in small contributions. Manchin will happily go to every candidate forum, every debate and engage with the opponent at every turn. His opponent will have a better grassroots campaign structure than Manchin, more canvassers, and possibly more money on top of that. In the end, Manchin wins the primary by 40 points, and proceeds to the general election with most of his ad budget focused on replaying all of those Sister Soulja moments he had during the primary and talking about how he stands up to extremism no matter which side of the aisle it's on.
Then we'll get to hear how Manchin won 3-to-1 only because the system is rigged and MUH CLOSED PRIMARIES.
Those who are fond of labels like "True/Real/Bold Progressives" need to accept that their beliefs are not viable in every state of the country - nor even in every state's Democratic electorate. There are still heaps of Democrats who consciously, directly and overtly prefer moderate and even conservative Democrats: they just can't seem to accept this. To them, it must just be because they're "uninformed" or "need to do their research" or whatever.
They also need to learn how to pick their fights and not be baited so easily. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if more Democrats start engineering themselves to be primaried for brownie points in tougher districts/states. And these irate types will continue to fall for it hook, line and sinker, wasting their time, energy, money and anger on this rather than doing something productive to make left-of-center politics more viable in this country.
It also wouldn't hurt for them to not associate the word "progressive" with "someone who supported the candidate I supported in the primary". Really embarrassing to see people claim that Tulsi Gabbard and Jeff Merkley are True Progressives or whatever.
I agree with this, except Jeff Merkley is a progressive. Unless you were just pointing out that he isn't a progressive solely because he endorsed Sanders, in which case I agree.
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